Annete Lareau: Unequal Childhoods, Term Paper Example

The book , ‘‘Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life,’’ by Annete Lareau is an ethnographic study that depicts the insights into a contemporary American society based on family life in a middle class, working class and poor American households. Lareau, who happens to be an assistant sociology professor, employs characteristic methods of conducting research to reflect intensive, naturalistic observation of parental habit and family culture (Lareau, p. 14). In a rich narration and insightful detail, Lareau bring to us the family life of three social classes in America; poor, middle-class, and wealthy Americans as she stress the fact that class really matters in childhood development. This book demonstrates how class dissimilarity in edifying   resources carried out by parents in their daily parenting duties of child rearing can have an influential impact on the kid’s ability to achieve the goals and expectation in America society.

Through case studies, Lareau narrates of a wealthy family pooped by jaunts to soccer practice, and of a wellbeing mother who attempts to put on the market her furniture to finance a trip to Florida with daughter suffering from AIDS, within the context she depicts all groups of children goofing around in the American society. According to Lareau, parenting methods vary a lot by class and not race as believed (Lareau, 47). In the poor households class and working-class, Lareau argues that, parents bother less in reasoning with their whiny offspring and in place children are expected to hustle for their own pastime rather than depending on their family unit to chauffeur them to lessons and activities. She says, working class and poor households acknowledge pecuniary limits, infrequently talk back, incident distant less sibling enmity, and are perceptibly free of a sense of freedom. On the other hand, middle class children develop an adept behavior in ensuring that their egocentric desires are met by others and are acquainted in societal mores i.e. shaking hands, cooperating together with others and staring individuals in the eye (Lareau, 96). In deed both methods of child bring up have merits and demerits, she says: middle class children are likely to be better prepared for achievements at school, but at the same time are probable to experience more stress than others whereas poor and working class children’s are believed to have a tight family ties, but at times miss participating in extramural actions. This is a keen and appealing research of life in ‘‘the land of opportunity’’ and the ‘‘land of disparity’’- Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life.

From my in- depth observation, class is not factor of differentiation in the lives and expectations of American children. Unequal childhoods explores the life scenario of childhood in the present day, families vary in habits, it is pragmatic on how frenetic families manage their kid’s frantic schedule of ‘‘leisure’’ activities; and here other family units have plenty of time other than economic security (Lareau, p.134). In my agreement with Lareau, middle-class parents, irrespective of race, engage in a progression of ‘‘intensive cultivation’’ premeditated to innovate children’s talents and skills, whereas the working class and poor family units depend on ‘‘the fulfillment of a natural growth,’’ whereby kid’s transformation unearths instinctively… as long the basic needs are availed. Both approaches of child rearing yield both reimbursement and drawback during child growth and development in the America society.

In my reaction and evaluation of childhood life in American society, power, and restrictions, of the societal class in influencing the life of an American child have been used to demonstrate the difference in the two approaches of child rearing within this context. It is clear that, not more than one in every five Americans believe ‘race, sex, religion or social class is crucial for prosperity in life. According to Lareau, the whole thing from observation ‘‘authority’’ figures in mind whilst you shake kid’s hands to spending long periods in a shared environment and backbiting with siblings is interconnected to social class. ‘‘Unequal childhoods’’ is one of the sensitizing topic that only builds in the meaning as the social class gap in United States of America widens (Lareau, p.168). Drawing  close acquaintance of children and family units, evaluation of social changes that have changed upbringing to be a comprehensive production process for majority of middle class America families. My reaction to this new culture in childhood and evaluation of the middle –class model of methodical cultivation to a more ordinary approach to child growth of which most working-class still stick on develops a decisively fundamental dimension of America family life and raises tricky cases for the parents and policy makers.

In conclusion, Annette Lareau depicts profound insight regarding societal stratification of family life and child care has deep implication on understanding inequity and reflects the struggle of any parent trying childrearing in America. Unequal childhood’s findings have an immense power in view of the fact that they are stranded in compelling ethnographic evidence that reveals how social class develops disparity in children’s life

Work Cited
Annete Lareau: 2003. Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life. Berkeley,: University of California Press.